And So It Begins

Well, actually, "it" began a while ago.  We had been talking about getting a trailerable sailboat for a couple years.  Finally, in 2011, we began seriously looking and in the fall bought a MacGregor 26X. 

Anchored at the State Park on Muskegon Lake

At the time Ron didn't know that I'd stumbled upon several sailing blogs and was quickly becoming engrossed in reading all things cruising related.  One day I casually mentioned the blogs I'd been reading and how there are a lot of people taking time off work to cruise on their boats.  And from there we started scheming.

Being the OCD person that I am, I had already played around with numbers and discussed how and when we could realistically (although theoretically) take off on a cruising adventure.  Ron, being the fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kinda guy he is, was all in.  He also began spending a lot of time getting more information online, which for him was a bit uncharacteristic. 

We spent the summer of 2012 taking the boat to various places including Grand Traverse Bay, White Lake, Muskegon Lake and Lake Michigan.  And despite some stressful times with lots of yelling, it was the best summer!  We learned (a LOT), explored and made great new friends.

First trip out to the big lake!

We had originally planned on using the MacG for a couple years before upgrading to a cruiser.  However, after crunching more numbers we decided to move our trip up by a year and so we began browsing boats online, ya know, just to see what was out there. 

We listed the MacG on Craigslist in September of 2012 and, much to our surprise, it sold in only four weeks.  In the meantime, we'd fallen in love with an S2 in Charlevoix, MI and decided to put in an offer on it the day after we sold the MacG.  The timing of it all couldn't have been more perfect!

So here we are today, waiting out another cold, dark winter, counting down the days until we can get Hullabaloo splashed and moved to her new home in Muskegon.  So for now we'll be researching, planning and saving like mad!

Lake Michigan dunes

Grand Traverse Bay

Grand Traverse Bay

We hope you'll follow along as we fumble our way through the processes, preparation and steep learning curve that we'll face as we get ready to embark on this crazy epic journey!